Tuesday Ten: Random Thoughts

Ten Random Thoughts Passing Through My Head This Evening

1. Seeing Stars. The night sky was beautiful this evening. I briefly considered waking the fine young gents and taking them out into the backyard in coats and pajamas. Why am I not one of those parents who wakes their children in the middle of the night to see the beauty of the stars?

Maybe when they're older.

2. China. Some of us are still delighting in our experience hosting the lovely young ladies from China. Two sweet girls emailed when they returned home, charming messages thanking us for our hospitality. One of the girls volunteered to take the boys to the zoo and teach them to say "giraffe" in Chinese. I'm ready to learn Chinese, and hop on a plane. I swoon with envy when I hear that someone I know is planning a trip to China, or has been to China, or can eat rice with chopsticks without getting rice down the front of their sweater.

Actually, I've always swooned with envy over the eating rice with chopsticks thing. And noodles too. My noodles always swing all over the place from the ends of the chopsticks and fling soup drops on my front.

3. Spring. The calendar says it's winter. The birds, and the tight buds forming on the trees, and the bulbs peeking shoots above the ground say "Spring! Spring! Spring! It's coming!" Oh, and my nose says "Spring!" too, although it sounds a little more like "Spwig!" because it's dripping like a little snot faucet. Ew. What did people do in the days before allergy medications?

Aside from my nose, we've gone from wanting to hunker down on the couch with good books and hot chocolate to yearning to get outside and dig in the dirt. It's still too cold and wet for digging, really, but we can feel our selves stirring and greening too.

4. Birds. We've got a bright blue scrub jay squawking about the chicken yard. He steals the chicken scraps and scolds us for sitting at the table on a crisp sunny day, when clearly the thing to do is to hop around and scold people. We've got robins hopping about the yard, and of course the crows, our winter birds, keep them company. I saw a tiny yellow warbler, a Townsend's warbler on a morning walk at the coast. We're planning a bird study in the spring, the calendar school-year spring, but I'm not sure we'll be able to wait that long.

5. Mother are mothers all over the world. I expect so, anyway. Talking to dear friend who lives just down the street about our experiences hosting the girls from China, I marvelled at how mother-hen we both felt toward these girls. So far from home. I just wanted to hug them and tuck them in and remind them to wear their jackets and make sure that they felt comfortable and safe and cherished.

6. Parenting teens is hard.

7. A nap works wonders. My sisters and I drove to the coast to spend the weekend with Mom. I took a three-hour nap on Saturday. I honestly can't remember the last time I napped. By Sunday, I was so relaxed and refreshed that when I woke to a slumbering house, I slipped on my shoes and went for a walk in the rain.

8. Ten minutes of five-year-old whining can undo an entire weekend of serenity.

9. Again with the China thing....What must it be like to have an entire generation consisting mostly of only children? I have no strong opinions for or against the One-Child population control policies in China, by the way. I'm mostly curious about the impact from a social and psychological standpoint. What must it be like growing up without brothers or sisters? Do children tend to form close lasting bonds with cousins, neighbors, friends that essentially simulate or replace the kinds of bonds we see between siblings? I know the girls from China were fascinated by the fine young gents, probably both because young children are entertaining and charming no matter where in the world one finds oneself and perhaps, too, because there are three little look-alike stair-step boys all in a row.

10. Life is good. Yeah, I know. I always say that. But life is good. The more we believe it, the more it becomes so.

A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes. (Mahatma Ghandi)

Life is good.

Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours. (Swedish proverb)

Really good.